Offices, commercial center could go on Signal Mountain Road tract in Chattanooga

Staff photo by Mike Pare / A boat for sale and a crane sit on a vacant parcel on Signal Mountain Road. A rezoning of the property could bring offices and a commercial center.
Staff photo by Mike Pare / A boat for sale and a crane sit on a vacant parcel on Signal Mountain Road. A rezoning of the property could bring offices and a commercial center.

One of the last flat vacant parcels on Signal Mountain Road in Chattanooga may see new development if a proposal to rezone the tract is approved next month by city planners.

Businessman Travis Poole said he's looking to bring professional offices and a two-story building to part of the 1.4-acre site on the 800 block of Signal Mountain Road and the 100 block of Russell Avenue.

Poole said in a telephone interview plans are to place his certified financial planning business, Poole Wealth Management, in the new building. It could hold 2,400 square feet of space in a $300,000 to $600,000 project, the business owner said.

He said he hopes to attract other business professionals offering services such as employee benefits and estate planning to the location as well.

Poole said he'd expect to use just a portion of the tract he wants rezoned C-2 Commercial by the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission when it meets in February.

He said he's submitting the rezoning proposal for a few owners of lots on the tract, which is now zoned R-1 and R-2 Residential and O-1 Office.

Chris Eslinger, who owns some of the land, said he sees the construction of a commercial strip center as "definitely one of the ideas" for use on the property.

"I haven't committed to that," he said Wednesday by phone, but he added that the timing may be right for the site's redevelopment.

A rezoning application also mentions the potential for upstairs apartments on the parcel, which runs from Russell Avenue nearly to Cross Street.

Poole said he likes the site's access, particularly to nearby Signal Mountain, where he has clients.

He said he'd like to see his building have a farm-house design.

"That would give it curb appeal," Poole said.

He said his office has been in downtown Chattanooga, where he'd been located for about 15 years. Poole said that sometimes it's difficult to park downtown and that parking spaces are included on the Signal Mountain Road site.

If the rezoning is approved by the planning commission and later the city council, he expected that work could start on his building around May or June.

Work on that project likely would take about six months, according to Poole.

Adjacent properties to the tract include residential and commercial locations. Poole said a landscape buffer would be needed to the rear of the property where there are residences.

The tract is situated not far from a shopping center where an Aldi grocery store and Tractor Supply Co. unit were raised about three years ago and a Jiffy Lube location was recently built. Across Signal Mountain Road, a free-standing Starbucks was constructed last year.

Not far away on Mountain Creek Road, new apartments were built and more are planned.

Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.

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